The Drinnglennin Chronicles Omnibus

by K. C. Julius

  Fynn staggered blindly away, choking on the surging contents of his stomach. He retched and gagged until he lay spent.

  “Drink.” His father was standing over him, thrusting a flask into Fynn’s hand. “Just a few sips.”

  Numbly, Fynn obeyed, and although the mead burned his raw throat, he kept it down.

  “You’re not the first to sicken in battle,” said Father.

  “Battle?” croaked Fynn. “Is that what you call it?”

  His father sighed. “The child would have suffered needlessly had she been allowed to live. Would you have me leave her here to starve?”

  “No,” said Fynn fiercely, wiping his hand across his running nose. “I would have you show mercy.”

  Father lifted Fynn’s chin, forcing him to meet his stern blue gaze. “That, my son, is exactly what I did.”

  Chapter 22

  The Helgrin fleet sailed north to Frendensko a week later, for the yarl had agreed to go raiding with his nephew on Drinnglennin’s eastern shores. Although there had been many a skirmish at sea with those from the Isle, it would be the first Helgrin foray onto Drinnglennin soil in a decade. It seemed a fitting target to mark the first time Aetheor Yarl and Aksel Styrsen sailed together into battle.

  Only one longboat continued on past Frendensko’s harbor, homeward bound with the most precious of their booty, and with the yarl’s younger son aboard. Fynn, in disgrace, would have ample time to face the devastating truth about himself during the course of the voyage.

  After returning from the battle with the rogue knights, he had succumbed to a fever and kept to his bed for two days. The killing of the child had made him sick, in both body and spirit. Visiting his bedside, his father had brusquely informed Fynn he was sending him home on the Gragas.

  Squatting alone now on deck, Fynn gazed out at the rolling water and considered casting himself into it. All that prevented him from doing so was the knowledge that this would further shame his father. He avoided the ship’s crew as much as was possible, for their expressions, ranging from pity to scorn, reflected what their yarl was certain to be feeling as well.

  Worse than this, he had failed his mother. He knew now he would never fulfill his vow to become a great Helgrin warrior, and so protect her. He was a coward, and soon his dishonor would be known to all. In his misery, Fynn imagined himself as an old man, alone and shunned by his community.

  Then a new fear pricked his conscience. What if Father was so disgusted by Fynn he put Mamma aside? The image of his mother, an iron collar encircling her slender neck as she hauled Wylda’s slop buckets, brought a rush of fresh shame. Perhaps, he thought desperately, I could earn a living as a bard, like Old Snorri, then buy her freedom.

  These dismal thoughts cast a shadow over the long hours northward. Fynn both yearned for and dreaded the call from the foredeck that would signal their arrival at the headlands of home.

  But when at last it came, its urgency jarred him from his despondency. The familiar melancholy mewling of the gulls did nothing to dispel the sudden fear that shot through Fynn as he ran to join the other men gathered at the bow.

  Beyond the bluffs sheltering Restaria’s bay from the sea, a thick column of black smoke coiled skyward.

  Agnarr, the helmsman, barked the order to stand toward Brandel Cove.

  Fynn scrambled up beside him. “What’s happened? Is Restaria on fire?”

  “Something’s burning,” the helmsman confirmed.

  “Then shouldn’t we sail with all speed into the harbor?” Fynn scanned the men’s grim faces.

  Delhorn strapped his scabbard across his shoulder. “If Restaria’s under attack, we risk sailing into a larger enemy fleet. A scouting party will disembark in the cove first, to investigate the source of the smoke from the bluffs.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Fynn said.

  Delhorn shook his head. “The yarl would never forgive your loss.”

  But Fynn was already securing his own sword around his waist. “Aetheor Yarl will kill any man who fails to protect my mother. Who among you wants to try to stop me?”

  Delhorn looked as though he was considering how best to avoid the yarl’s wrath, and in the end he gave a stiff nod. “So be it. But you join us as a scout only, you understand? Should we get drawn into a fight, you will stay out of it.”

  Fynn nodded brusquely, but he intended to do no such thing.

  * * *

  They lay to in the cove, and seven men, Fynn among them, rowed to shore. They scaled the bluffs, then dropped to their bellies and looked down on their homes.

  Below them, Restaria burned.

  A dozen ships, flying black and silver standards, crowded the harbor, and clusters of armor-clad men ranged through the streets, chasing down those who had thus far evaded their swords. Flecks of ash drifted over the houses toward the bluffs, and with them came the screams of those still living, most of them high and shrill.

  For a stunned moment, no one spoke.

  Then Delhorn said, “Back to the ship.”

  “What?” Fynn made a move to rise.

  Delhorn pulled him roughly down. “Our best chance for revenge is to sail south and hope to meet up with the yarl’s fleet. With luck, we might intercept these bastards at sea.”

  Fynn’s jaw dropped. “You mean, just leave our kin to die?”

  The other men had already edged back and were making for the trail down to the beached boat. Fynn grabbed Jofling’s arm. “Your wife’s down there!” he cried. “And your children!”

  Tears welled in Jofling’s eyes. “My babes are dead,” he said, in a terrible voice. “And as for my wife…” He shook Fynn off. “I choose to live and have my revenge.”

  Arne laid a hand on Fynn’s shoulder. “Come along now, lad. We’ve no option. We’re outnumbered twenty to one. To go down there now is senseless. If we’re not slain outright, we’ll be taken as thralls; Drinnglennians don’t keep slaves, but they’re not above selling them in lands that do. We’ll not save our families that way. We have to join with the yarl and the rest of the fleet if we’re to have even a chance of rescuing our women and any of our children spared for the southern markets.” He turned his bleak gaze toward the water. “And if we fail… I’d rather die as a Helgrin should, in battle at sea.”

  The man’s logic was sound; Fynn knew this. But the shrieks of the women were too heart-rending to ignore. He twisted out of Arne’s grasp and sprinted toward the manor on the hill.

  * * *

  The house looked as though it had been waiting to welcome him. Someone had recently raked the yard, and there was fresh myrtle on the veranda. Its peppery scent followed him over the threshold and into the darkened hallway.

  “Mamma?”

  Usually at this time of day she’d be in the kitchen, reviewing the day’s chores with Teca, but moving through the quiet house, he saw the door to her chamber was ajar. Fynn pushed it wide, the taste of dread on his tongue.

  Broken vials of perfume and scented oils crunched under his boots, and a jumble of gowns lay across her broad bed. But the room was empty.

  He raced on to the kitchen. No one was there either, but dark spatters on the terracotta tiles led him to the outside door, which stood wide open.

  He found his mother just outside the smokehouse, curled on her side, her dark lashes resting on her alabaster cheeks. She breathed in little sips, as though she were sampling the air.

  Fynn saw the short blade protruding from her ribs, encircled by a crimson stain, and fell to his knees. “Mamma! How can I help you? Shall I pull it out?”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “No,” she murmured. “No need, my son.” A faint smile curved her lips. “The gods have answered my prayers. You are here.”

  Fynn stifled the sob that rose in his throat. “Why did they hurt you, Mamma? Your own people?”

  She gave a slight co
ugh, and bright blood surged from her wound. “This is the work of the yarla,” she whispered. “She surprised me from behind, then…” She lifted a trembling hand, and Fynn seized it. “She said Drinnglennian ships were coming into harbor. That neither of us would survive to see Aetheor’s return, but before she died, she wanted the pleasure of taking my life.”

  Fynn’s blood ran hot with fury, then cold with fear. “I’ll get Teca!”

  “No, she’s… she’s doing my bidding.” Mamma’s sapphire eyes sought Fynn’s and held them. “You… must listen to me.” A gasp of pain escaped her, and panic constricted Fynn’s chest.

  “Let me get some bandages, Mamma.”

  “It’s too late for that. You must listen to me. Do you remember when you asked me why Teca wouldn’t speak of her past life? The truth is, I made her swear not to.”

  “Shhh, Mamma,” Fynn whispered. There was blood, so much blood.

  “Are you listening, my son? There is little time.”

  “Yes, Mamma.” His voice was thick with tears.

  “I am the reason she is here, living as a thrall. I offered myself to be captured, but she was the one enslaved. The night I was taken, I walked out to meet the Helgrin warriors. I had arrayed myself in my finest raiment and my most precious jewels—the ruby necklace and earrings, the pearled tiara, rings of gold—all gifts from your father on our wedding night.”

  “I don’t understand, Mamma. You and Father were married?”

  Her gaze was far away. Another place, another time. “He made me stand before the gods to take the vows.” A spasm of coughing took her, and the dark stain spread. “I knew for certain… I was carrying you the day Aetheor lifted me into his shore boat, to spirit me away to Restaria.”

  Fynn was barely listening. The blood seeping from her wound had turned black. “What should I do, Mamma? I don’t know what to do!”

  She groped for his hand, her fingers as cold as ice. “Do as I say. Bring me the enamel box on my dressing table—the one that holds my rings. Go now.”

  Although he hated to leave her side, he obeyed, and was back with the box before he had drawn a dozen breaths.

  “Good,” she said, “very good. You can offer them as proof. But there’s one piece you must never part with. Are you listening, my son?”

  Proof of what? Fynn thought. She was making no sense. Her eyelids drifted closed, and he sickened at the effort it cost her to force them open again. Her eyes were two sapphire jewels in a face pale as the moon.

  “There’s… a false bottom in the box,” she whispered. Her breathing was ragged.

  Fynn fumbled with the latch and lifted the lid. All her rings were gone; Wylda must have taken them. He shielded this from his mother’s gaze, as his fingers found the false bottom and pried it up. Nestled beneath it, tarnished by time, coiled a silver chain. Carefully, he drew it out.

  “Put it on, my son, under your tunic. Good, yes… you must… never take it off, or reveal it to anyone… save a loyal vassal of Urlion of Drinnglennin.”

  “How can I do that, Mamma? Why would I go to the land of our enemies?”

  “Teca will help you.”

  The ghost of a smile flickered across Mamma’s ashen lips. She closed her eyes, and for a heart-stopping moment, Fynn thought she had already followed Leh to the Holy Mountain. But then she spoke once more, as though from a great distance.

  “It’s the only way I know, my son, to bring you safely to your father’s care.”

  Fynn could hold back no longer. He laid his head on her breast and sobbed. “Don’t leave me, Mamma!”

  “My son,” she whispered. “Aetheor… is my one true love. One day, if you meet him again, tell him… tell him I will wait for him in the Sky Hall, if his gods will let me enter. For such a great warrior, surely they will?”

  Fynn heard shouting, closer now. Soon the invaders would be here. “I must try to hide you, Mamma.”

  “No, Fynn. I can’t be moved, and we both know this. Promise me… you will never remove the pendant. Promise me you will do as Teca says.”

  Shrill screams rang out from the direction of Einar’s longhouse at the foot of the trail leading up to the ridge.

  “Promise me, Fynn,” she whispered.

  Then, with a shuddering breath, she was still.

  “I promise, Mamma,” Fynn choked, though he knew she could no longer hear him.

  A wail of sorrow welled up inside him, and he lifted his tear-stained face to the sky—only to discover that he was not alone.

  Teca stood framed in the kitchen doorway, an iron collar in her hand.

  Chapter 23

  Halla

  Through unmeasured time, Halla lay cramped between strangers, vacillating between grueling pain and merciful, if brief, oblivion. She had been cast on a rolling surge in the dark, her nostrils assaulted by the stench of human misery, her ears by whimpers and moans. Long hours passed as she lay helpless in her own filth.

  Occasionally blinding light would appear from above, and someone would hold the rim of a chipped bowl of sour water to her lips, or a spoonful of foul-tasting broth. She accepted these with what little will she could muster. When she could move her swollen fingers, she ran them over her aching ribs and discovered that someone had strapped them. She no longer wore the tunic and leggings Bria had given her a lifetime ago, but was now clad in a rough linen sheath.

  As she came more to cognizance, she identified women’s voices around her, with the occasional growl from overhead. Whiffs of fresher, briny air came when the growling man appeared, and she knew then that they were at sea.

  Most of the time she feigned sleep. It was only when a woman whispered to her in Livårian that she dared to open her eyes.

  A dark-haired woman with grime on her face was gently lifting Halla’s head and pressing a spoon against her lips. “Eat,” said the woman. “Eat and stay alive.”

  Halla obeyed, for she intended to survive.

  * * *

  The next day, Halla could sit up and feed herself. She ate all her gruel, despite its rancid taste, and unlike several of the others, she managed to keep it down. Her ankle, although painful, was not broken, and she could hobble over to the slop buckets with the help of Donka, the woman who had been feeding her. It was from Donka that Halla learned all her fellow captives were å Livåri and that most of them had been taken from Branley Tor. Their clan had been attacked by a group of renegade å Livåri, some of whom now manned the ship upon which they traveled.

  “We offered the curs hospitality, and they repaid us with treachery, right after they’d scraped the last of my persoga from the bottom of the stewpot,” Donka said. “May they fall into the Abyss unwashed and unburied!” She spat venomously into the straw.

  “May they die alone and unlamented!” cried Tsura, one of Donka’s sisters, and the other women took up their own curses.

  “But why?” Halla asked. “Why would these men turn on their own people?” She looked from one to another, struggling to understand. “It’s against everything the å Livåri stand for.”

  “For some, the lure of riches is stronger than bloodlines,” said Tsura darkly.

  Including Halla, there were thirty-two young women and girls held captive in the ship’s hold. When Halla ventured to ask what had become of the å Livåri clan’s menfolk, it was Donka who broke the ensuing silence.

  “Those who didn’t die in the fighting were chained and led off,” she said. “That was the last we saw of them.”

  “And your mothers? Your grandmothers?”

  Halla had her answer when Donka’s eyes filled with tears.

  Mirela spoke up then. She was a quiet girl, about Halla’s age, and wore the single braid of a young bride. “Even before we were taken, we heard rumors that our people were being killed and captured. Some say those who survive are sold to slavers who trade in Olquaria.”


  Tsura whimpered at the thought. “My baba said our people were hunted for sport there in the old days!”

  “My father told me the Helgrins are buying up thralls to labor in their colonies in Gral,” said Jaelle, one of the youngest among them. “They work their slaves to near-death, then turn them out to die in the depth of winter.”

  At the mention of Helgrins, several women covered their faces with their hands.

  Donka gave a sharp laugh. “Look around you,” she said. “Why do you suppose we were separated from the other women?”

  All of them in the fresh bloom of womanhood.

  “To be servants?” ventured Jaelle.

  Nadoma, a voluptuous woman whose beauty shone through despite the squalid conditions, smiled bitterly. “We’ll be serving someone, for sure. But not as cooks or carriers.”

  Halla’s gut clenched. “I won’t. Not without a fight.”

  “You can struggle all you like,” Nadoma retorted. “Some men prefer it that way. But you’re bound to sacrifice some of those pretty teeth if you do. If you’re lucky, you’ll be bought by one who’s not too old, or too fat, or who doesn’t like it rough. In any event, you’ll do what you’re bid, or you’ll suffer the consequences. For that’s what we’re all about now—the business of staying alive. That’s the only ambition we’re allowed.”

  Halla lifted her chin. “I’m about the business of escaping. I’ll not live my life as someone else’s property.”

  “Bold words,” Nadoma said with a sneer. “We’ll see what tune you sing when they put you on the block for auction. With that fiery hair, a gajo like you should fetch a pretty price, although you’re too tall for many a man’s tastes.” She eyed Halla speculatively. “How great must have been your crime, to be sold to these dogs…”